Read Part ONE and TWO of Against The Stream: A Buddhist Manual for Spiritual Revolutionaries here.

SEXXXUALITY

Against The Stream: A Buddhist Manual for Spiritual Revolutionaries

Of all of the energies that we experience, the Buddha spoke of sexual desire as being the strongest

Not just the act of sex, but the whole realm of sexuality, including intimacy, procreation, sexual pleasure, and loving relationships. The Buddha saw sexual energy as the strongest of all energies in existence, and perhaps the most difficult to relate to skillfully. This may be a little surprising, because when we look at the world we see a great deal of suffering, none of it linked in any obvious way to sexuality. Wars and oppression fueled by ignorance, greed, and hatred stand out as the most glaring defects of human history. A cursory glance at world history shows us mass oppression and destruction of life in wretched variety: German Nazism, the slave-trading of the colonists, the Japanese nationalism of World War II, the ongoing civil wars and “racial cleansing” in Africa and eastern Europe, the genocide of the native North Americans by immigrants, the religious wars in Israel, the American invasion of Iraq, and the long legacy of sexist and racist oppression in all cultures.

Certainly this list suggests that hatred and violence are stronger than love or sexual desire. Nonetheless, I believe that if we look deeper, we will see that sexual energy is indeed the strongest energy in the human experience, and the most difficult to relate to skillfully. Although there is far too much tragic violence in this world, there are many people who are not touched by violence at all. Yet even if we removed all forms of violence from the world, people would still experience suffering in the realm of sexuality. Looking at our own lives, is there a reader among us who has not experienced some level of suffering in a sexual relationship?

The Buddha said that if there were two energies as powerful as lust for sex, no one would ever get enlightened, including himself. We can deal with the really powerful energy of sexuality and work with it skillfully, pay attention to it, understand it, and bring wisdom to it, but only because aversion, hatred, and delusion don’t have quite the same power over us that the desire for procreation does. While the survival instinct our species has of wanting to procreate may not be conscious, it is certainly present in most of us on a cellular level.

Because it is such a strong desire, most religions and most people tend to fall on one side or the other regarding sexual energy. Either they feel it’s all good and beautiful, or they feel it’s really bad and ugly. Some say that sex is divine and the source of spiritual bliss, while others say that it’s negative and evil, the work of the devil. I’m going to propose, and this is the Buddhist perspective, that sexual energy is neither good nor bad. It is natural. It is neutral. It is just energy.

Assigning labels such as good or bad, positive or negative, means making a judgment. And yet sexuality is not inherently anything other than a natural biological human experience that is totally neutral. Well, perhaps it does fall into the pleasurable side of experiences, but only at a sensory level. Just because it feels good doesn’t make it positive or negative.

Okay, so if sexuality isn’t negative, then it isn’t sexuality itself that causes problems. It’s how we relate to sexual experiences that’s important. It is completely natural for sexual desire to be present at times. It is also natural for it not to be present at other times. There are some beings who don’t have much of a sex drive, but it is natural for most. In so many ways sexuality is just a part of our physical, emotional, and mental makeup. If you have a mind and a body, most likely you also have sexual desire.

The issue here is not sexual energy itself, then, since that’s an innately human characteristic. The difficulty we face lies in our inner relationship of attachment to pleasure.

On the cushion in meditation practice, we begin to understand that clinging, attachment, and aversion are the primary causes of the extra layer of suffering that we create for ourselves. We begin to see, through paying attention to the breath, body, emotions, and mind, that if we allow everything that arises to pass, we will experience a quality of satisfaction in pure awareness, in the natural arising and passing away of our mind states and sensations. If we let go for even just half a breath at a time, a relaxation happens, an acceptance of what is. If, on the other hand, we try to hold on to or push away certain mind states and sensations, we create a whole other level of discomfort and dissatisfaction.

Applying the practice of letting go to our sexual urges allows us to relate to the natural sexual desires that arise. When we are not being mindful and aware of the thoughts, feelings, and desires that arise, they run our lives and dictate our actions. With mindfulness and investigation, we can finally have the choice to act skillfully, which means at times letting go of or avoiding unskillful situations and at other times enjoying the experiences that present themselves.

If we look at our own individual sexual history, our own past or present relationships, as well as the relationships of just about everyone we know, we will see that these relationships have been the source of tremendous confusion and emotional pain. I think it is fair to say that a lack of skill in relating to sexual energy, whether our own lack (and resulting actions) or the lack (and resulting actions) of someone else, has caused most people to suffer.

As noted earlier, sexual suffering is caused not by the energy itself, but by our own inability to understand and skillfully deal with that energy. At its most unskillful extreme—as manifested in all of the rape and sexual abuse that occur daily in this world—sexuality is closer to violence or hatred than to love or beauty. But even those of us who are attempting the spiritual path—doing our best to pay attention, practicing our meditation and mindfulness, and trying to be as compassionate and skillful as possible—still struggle with intimate relationships, though such relationships are a tremendous source of joy.

Even in a dream relationship, one where you fall in love (and have your family, or don’t) and live happily ever after, someone eventually dies first, and the other is left with great sorrow. Even “happily ever after” ends in losing your life partner. In Embracing the Beloved, a book on relationship as spiritual practice, my parents, Stephen and Ondrea Levine, write that if you really, really love your partner, you might want that person to die first so that he or she would not have to grieve your loss—in other words, in true love, you would be willing to do the grieving.

Attachment seems to be inherent in sexually intimate relationships, and therein lies the rub. The goal of unconditional/ nonattached interaction is simply unrealistic once sex enters the picture. Human beings naturally get attached to the pleasure of sexual intimacy—an intimacy that involves not just the physical pleasure of sex, but also feelings of security and safety. Even when one of the partners is unattached—or, more likely, emotionally unavailable—the other will most often cling to the idea that the unattached partner will change, and thus the clinger creates great suffering for him or herself.

The problem of attachment isn’t particular to sexuality, of course; it’s come up in various contexts in earlier pages. Our lack of acceptance of impermanence gets us into all kinds of trouble. We don’t like things to change, whatever the arena. But that attachment is a special problem with sexuality, because sexual desire and fulfillment are natural and beautiful and pleasurable. Of course we want the pleasure of sex and love and intimacy. But we don’t want the experience to change or end, nor do we want our partner to change. We don’t want to understand or accept that everyone and everything is going to change.

Sometimes people are fortunate enough in intimate relationships to change at about the same pace and in the same direction; they change together. They come together and grow, and it seems to work out. Other people allow some level of unconditionality around the relationship and allow their partner to grow and change without taking it personally. Most of us, though, succumb to the pervasive delusion that if something changes in us or in our partner, we are somehow to blame. We take impermanence and change personally, as if they were somehow our fault. Often our reaction is to hold on, to grasp at the way it used to be, or to fall into the delusion that we can change our lovers into the person we want them to be. We can get stuck in the way we want it to be rather than rest in the acceptance of the way it is.

The Buddha saw how challenging it is to be involved in relationships without getting caught—without getting hooked or attached and inevitably experiencing suffering. His response was to prescribe celibacy, meaning no intentional sexual experiences, including masturbation. Committed to the path to freedom that consists of non-attachment and compassion, he practiced celibacy and taught celibacy t the people who joined him in the monastic community. Because he realized that it is difficult (but not impossible) for people not to cling to the pleasure and comfort of sexual relationships, he said, in effect, Sex is often a source of suffering. If you really don’t want to suffer, it’s probably best to avoid this experience. If you’re having sex and falling in love and having families, how can you do that without getting attached? And if you get attached, you’re going to suffer some. So let’s just forget the whole business. It’s too difficult. Just renounce it totally and let it go.

Celibacy is a viable option for all of us. It doesn’t ask that we do without love—that would be impossible—only that we do without sex. And love is something that, unlike sexuality, can be experienced without attachment. Though it may appear that love is inextricably linked to attachment, these two mind states are distinct. When we examine them with investigative present-time awareness, we see that there is a moment of pure love, which is generosity, and then typically there is a moment of clinging, often followed by demands for more; and the suffering of attachment follows. The reason it seems that these two distinct experiences are connected is that we rarely pay close attention and the process happens quickly.

While unconditional love can be nonattached, there is no such thing as unconditional relationship

When our love becomes sexual and thus relational, we impose certain conditions that are nonnegotiable. Fidelity, for example, and kindness and caring actions—if these conditions aren’t present, the relationship will be a source of more pain than pleasure and will surely end in a broken heart, fractured spirit, and fatigued mind. Of course the conditions of relationship don’t necessarily have to affect unconditional love, but most often when the container of loving sexual relationship is broken, the love itself is also somehow altered.

It seems likely, then, that no matter how good a meditator we become, in the realm of sexually intimate relationships we are going to experience some level of suffering. That is the “contract” we sign when we choose to enter into sexual relationships. It is much better to enter such relationships with an understanding of the consequences of getting attached than to be blindsided by the reality of impermanence when it reveals itself.

In my own experience, I suffered so much in my early life that I came to spiritual practice with the sincere motivation to find freedom from suffering. When I heard the Buddhist teachings on celibacy, I felt that they were too extreme, that too much was being asked. After all, I just wanted to find some peace of mind; I didn’t want to become a saint or anything. After I had been practicing for a while, I found that the addictions, violence, and dishonesty of my youth were no longer such a source of suffering, though my life continued to be difficult. As my life slowly transformed, I became more sensitive about my actions and their effects on me and others. With that increased sensitivity, it became clear to me that I didn’t have the ability to be nonattached in the realm of sexuality. In fact, the main source of suffering in my life had become my relationship to sexual desire and my unskillfulness in relationships. I began to see how often I was getting hurt and hurting other people in sexual relationships.

That’s when I began to understand why the Buddha had put so much emphasis on celibacy. I also had a teacher who was practicing and teaching celibacy and I had been attending retreats with the Buddhist monk Ajahn Amaro. So out of my sincere desire for freedom, I decided to try the path of celibacy.

I was in my early twenties when I first took a vow of celibacy. (No masturbation, no sexual contact, no intercourse, no intentional ejaculation.) During the couple of years I spent in that practice, I found it incredibly difficult. I was very attached to sex and the intimacy, pleasure, and comfort that it afforded. Honestly, I probably put as much energy into not having sex as I had put into having sex!

But it was through celibacy that I first experienced transformative insights into the law of impermanence. When I learned to allow sexual desire to be present and to feel the cravings without acting on them, I began to really understand the truth of impermanence. No matter how strong the mind state and the hindrances of doubt and fear, those emotions always passed. At times it felt as if I was going to be alone for the rest of my life, as if I would die of loneliness. Yet through letting all of those thoughts and feelings come and then watching them go, I learned more about impermanence than I had in years of meditation. Eventually a calm and steady ease developed: I knew to expect lust to come and go. I knew that I could handle anything the mind and body presented, and thus I could direct my time and energy toward practice and service.

Many people take the stance that because sexual desire is completely natural, to suppress or renounce it is unnatural and even unhealthy. For the most part I agree with that. If we are suppressing or pushing anything away, there’s generally something unhealthy going on; it’s just more aversion. But celibacy isn’t aversion or suppression; it’s the practice of allowing desire to be present without acting on it.

When we practice mindfulness and allow sexual energy to be the object of awareness, rather than allowing ourselves to be a slave to the libido’s every request, we begin to relate to sexuality rather than from it

When we aren’t paying attention, our sexual desires motivate our actions, whether we like it or not. When we are paying attention, we can choose to take action  to fulfill our desires or to abstain. When sexuality is related to skillfully, it becomes our teacher rather than our tormentor. It becomes just another experience in the mind and body that  we can and should pay close attention to.

For Buddhist practitioners, sexuality is a dilemma. We have a teacher, a model of celibacy, yet most of us aren’t actually practicing celibacy as the Buddha did. After I relinquished my vow of celibacy and entered back into relationships, I returned to the realm of relational difficulties. Some years later I went off and tried to ordain as a monk, thinking that I would go back into the celibate lifestyle, but I was unsuccessful. I knew that it was possible, but I didn’t have the willingness. It felt clear to me that my path in this lifetime was going to be one of relationship and service and life as practice. So I left the monastery idea behind and returned to the world, convinced that that’s where my work is to be done.

I feel very clear about the suffering that I willingly experience and cause through my participation in intimate relationships. It is very important for us to reflect for ourselves on the truth of this willingness and see that we are not victims. Those of us who don’t opt for celibacy are choosing to participate in sexual relationships, knowing that difficulty is inherent in such relationships, and knowing that sooner or later we are going to suffer as the outcome of attachment in an impermanent realm. We have the option or model of not participating in sexual relationships. If we consciously choose a different path, choose to satisfy sexual desire and to participate in the most skillful way that we can in relationships, it is important that we know and acknowledge the price tag of this participation.

The Buddha’s solution was celibacy, a path of both internal and external renunciation. Our solution may be the more internal path of renouncing attachment: we may choose to be as wise and careful as possible while accepting responsibility for all of our actions, understanding that every action has a reaction. But we need to make that choice with an eye toward karma—the truth of cause and effect. In other words, we must realize that we are consciously choosing to participate in a realm of experience that, however natural and beautiful and pleasurable, seems to inevitably cause suffering for us.

I can’t say it enough: most of us don’t have the ability to remain only loving and completely nonattached.

There are Tibetan and Indian spiritual traditions, such as Tantra, that propose nonattached sexual experience as a path to enlightenment. My opinion is that those teachings are nice ideals, but they’re not very practical. The Dalai Lama is rumored to have said that being able to have sex without any attachment would take the level of attainment of being able to eat either chocolate cake or dog shit without any preference between the two. That’s an impressive amount of non-attachment! The Dalai Lama also said that he didn’t know anyone alive who had attained this level of non-attachment.

For those of us who are what the Buddha referred to as lay-people—that is, non-monastics who practice Buddhism and follow the Buddhist path without practicing celibacy or living by the strict code of ethics and renunciation of monks and nuns—all the Buddha really offered was the five precepts. He said don’t kill things, don’t steal things, don’t use drugs, don’t lie, and refrain from sexual misconduct.

What “sexual misconduct” is is fairly vague in Buddhist scriptures. It comes down to the general rule of not committing adultery and not intentionally causing harm through our sexual energy. The general language says, in effect, Go for it, consenting adults—but be willing to accept the consequences. Enjoy all the pleasure and intimacy that sex brings, but be awake. Remember the truth of impermanence: that you are going to change and your partner is going to change and you are probably not going to like it. Be willing and go into it with your eyes open.

I offer all of this in a spirit of exploration. I don’t claim to have all the answers. I admit that this is the most challenging realm of my practice and the cause of the most suffering in my life. And I know I am not alone in that.

4:32 / 1:12:55

Noah Levine Dharma Talk and Meditation: Buddhism and Sex

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